Good Food Hunting

According to Chris, I “hit this one out of the park.” And its “on the top ten ever list.” And I “can make this again later this week.”

What did I make?

Just some pork n’ potatoes.

I used this potato recipe from Simply Recipes but with a few modifications:

Ingredients

* 3 Slices of thick style bacon
* 1/2 pound new purple potatoes sliced in half and then in small wedges
* 1 small yellow onion, thinly sliced lengthwise
* 4 medium sized shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
* Olive oil
* Kosher Salt
* Freshly cracked pepper
* 1 pinch red pepper flakes
* 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon
* 1 tablespoon chopped capers
* 1/2 Tbsp unsalted butter

Method

1 In a small sauté pan heat one tablespoon of olive oil over a low heat. Add the sliced onions in one even layer, after five minutes add 1/2 tablespoon of butter, stir and add a pinch of kosher salt. While rendering your bacon and cooking your mushrooms in the next steps, make sure to stir the onions every few minutes and remove once they are evenly browned. This should take around 30 minutes, remove from heat when finished and reserve.

2 While the onions are slowly cooking slice the bacon in small batonettes (1/8-inch crosswise strips) on your cutting board. Heat up a larger sauté pan on medium and when your pan is hot add the sliced bacon. Slowly sauté the bacon until slightly crispy and remove from the pan on to a paper towel-lined plate, reserve for later.

3 Julienne the shiitake mushrooms and then add them to the pan which now has the rendered bacon fat. Add a pinch of salt and fresh cracked pepper to the Shitake mushrooms, don’t shake the pan but let the mushrooms brown evenly on one side. Once browned, flip the mushrooms delicately and remove from pan onto a smaller plate, reserve.

My changes:

Used red skin potatoes instead of purple.

Used regular bacon instead of thick-cut (honestly, I think that thick-cut would have been better but at minimum, get decent center-cut bacon. More meat and less fat).

Used a 4 oz package of shiitake mushrooms which may or may not be equivalent to the original.

Used 1 tsp dried tarragon instead of fresh. Added the tarragon to the potatoes after the first flip during browning. Left out the capers as we don’t have any. For fresh green color, I tossed a little roughly chopped parsley (curly) on just before serving.

---

Pan-fried Pork with White Wine-Tarragon sauce:

Ingredients

2 medium-thick boneless pork chops or similar
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs seasoned with Italian seasonings
1/4 cup shredded cheese (I used a blend with parmesan)
1/4 cup Chardonnay
1 cup vegetable broth
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
1 scant tablespoon Creole mustard (or other grainy-type)
up to 2 tablespoons butter
salt & pepper
olive oil

Directions

1. Combine bread crumbs and cheese in a shallow dish or plate. In second dish/plate, break the egg and whisk lightly to combine yolk and white. Season pork with salt & pepper, both sides.

2. Heat olive oil over medium heat in large skillet. When heated, dredge pork in egg then in bread crumb mixture. You can pat the bread crumbs on for better stick, if necessary.

3. Saute pork 3-4 minutes per side, until nicely browned and cooked through. Remove to plate, cover and keep warm.

4. Bring heat up to medium-high and add wine to pan, deglazing for any bits on the bottom. Add vegetable broth, tarragon and mustard. Bring to a boil.

5. Boil until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Turn heat down to just above low, add cold butter. Start with 1 tablespoon. Melt in to sauce then add second tablespoon if thicker sauce is desired.